Naomi's new home is perfect. She is miles away from her past and content in her new life. Only problem is, the attic is always locked and the landlord keeps strange hours. Trouble has a way of following Naomi, but this isn't just trouble, its murder.

A/N: Just a new attempt at a suspenseful story, not quite sure where I will go with this but its late and thought I'd give it a shot Hope you like and please read and review!

Prologue

Time was missing.

Her head was pounding, her temples throbbing with a slow, drumming pain. She tried to breathe in deep but the room she found herself in felt devoid of air. Shadows consumed her vision. Tears begun bubbling in her lids and the urge to cry out was so powerful it could have ripped her soul into pieces.

She struggled to regain composure. She didn't remember where she was or how she got here, only that something was restricting her movements. The room was cold, a deep chill that felt like needles lightly pricking the skin. The fear was so immense, so overwhelmingly strong, that her fragile body shook with it. An earthquake of terror consumed her in an instant, and she let out a cry. Her throat closed up almost instantly, causing her to writhe with the need for air. Panic, white hot, branded her heart in that instant, forever altering her. She could feel the change, something like a psychological scar suddenly raised along the skin of her life. Her younger sister, a petite girl in her first year of college, passed into her thoughts like a reflection in a pool. She could suddenly see the girl, the girl who was at peace for the moment but would soon find herself alone in this world.

Her throat opened suddenly and air forced itself deep into her chest. Relief flooded in, a warm sensation on the edge of her senses. Closing her eyes, she began to feel her way around her. Her arms were behind her, being crushed by her weight as she lay on her back. Something metal bound her wrists, cutting into them with a sharp pain. Other than that, she had no other way of knowing where she was or what had happened to her.

Throwing her right shoulder to the side, something caught in the chain that bound her, preventing her to roll over. The pain in her temples began to drum with a more incessant beat, something more maniacal and angry.

Taking another deep breath and suppressing the tears, Rachel began to trace her steps throughout the day, somehow searching in her memory of where her abduction could have taken place.

The morning had started slow, a cup of coffee and a warm shower. Talking to her younger sister on the phone as she laid her work clothes on the silk duvet, the recent death of their parents in a horrible gas leak fire was readily at the front of their conversations. The pain in her sisters voice was palpable, and all Rachel could do to help the girl get out of bed and attend class was console her and promise a weekend trip to the gulf coast, time on the warm sandy beach and lots of rest.

That's when the memory seemed to suddenly drop off, like a blind man stepping over a steep cliff. Time had seemingly vanished. She recalled grabbing her keys, hanging up with her sister and answering a few e-mails as she stepped into her Lexus. Then, nothing.

It seemed as if after the moment she got into her car, time suddenly caved in and she awoke in this dusty, secluded room. When had someone taken her? And why in broad daylight?

The scraping of a floorboard below her and heavy footsteps brought her back to the current situation. Boots collided with rotting wood with an angry intensity. She began shaking her wrists; hoping somehow the shackles would fall off and an escape route would appear like a red glowing exit sign in an office building.

A faint yellow outline of a door flashed past her feet. A bulb had been turned on and the edges of a faded luminosity caused the room she was held in to be shed in light. A dank attic surrounded her, tufts of pink insulation in two corners next to the doorway. She could hear keys jangling just outside the wall, and a turning of a lock. The sound was loud in the deafening silence, as if it was the call of death announcing its arrival. Her heartbeat punched her ribcage like a desperate child fighting its bully in the schoolyard. Sweat stung her eyes and she couldn't even shout as the terror choked life from her.

Door swinging with a jerk, the room became instantly brighter. A large, heaving shadow of a man blocked the exit, breath so ragged and deep it shook the dust in the air.

Bringing an arm from behind its back, the grey shape of an axe cut the atmosphere.

"It will be over soon," he said, setting the sharpened blade onto the wood flooring, "So no need to cry anymore, Rachel."

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